Silicon Valley: “Facial Recognition”

It’s almost as if it was deliberately planned for this episode to follow the season premiere of Westworld. At least, that’s how it unfolded in my part of the world. While Silicon Valley is typically a show that revolves around technology, a majority of this episode revolves around an AI that has a face and talks. Gilfoyle’s paranoia about the eventual machine takeover was a nice touch.

Jared really shined as a character in this one. It made me realize that we haven’t gotten too many outstanding Jared moments this season. Not only was the manure speech unexpected, it actually made sense. Of course, Richard is jealous of the attention that Jared gets because of it, despite having a clear aversion to public speaking. If his aversion to speaking in front of an audience is not apparent by now, watch any episode this season and some episodes of previous seasons. So, why is he jealous to a point of obvious insecurity? I think the AI’s emotion recognition protocol put it best.

﻿

Fiona, the AI, listened to Richard’s rant and then listed every emotion that could cause his behavior. It’s not unusual to see Richard make some sort of mistake that will damage any potential success that he or the company would have. This coupled with Gilfoyle’s seed of suspicion of artificial intelligence created a red herring that I admit I actually fell for.

When asked to check her own emotions and being exposed to a network of humans with their emotions, it was easy to suspect that Fiona went rampant and caused the DDOS attack. Instead, it was her creepy creator that made the attacks to stop Fiona’s pleas for help.

Jared’s permanent duckface provided me with some of the biggest laugh-out-loud moments. The reactions to his lips were just the icing on the cake. It was either the insecurities that Jared had about his face or Fiona’s recognition of Richard’s emotions that they decided to title this episode Facial Recognition or both. Either way, it was an enjoyable episode and good way to start the second half of the season.

Pied Piper, of course, updated their blog. Jared is always good about doing aweekly post, even when he pokes fun at himself. Hooli finally made a significant update to their website, you can check outThe Box III: Gavin Belson Signature Editionand its specs in all its glory. The competition doesn’t have the balls to stand up to this one.

For a sneak peek at next week’s episode, check this out. It looks like Fiona will be around for more than just this episode.